The Da Vinci Code
What safer haven for a supposedly controversial movie than in the hands of Ron Howard and Tom Hanks? I am sure we have all been debating the merits of the book as fiction and the resultant problems that the Catholic Church states it is causing them, etc, with all our friends and coworkers ad nauseam. I am not here to discuss the veracity of the Big Secret that Hanks and his partner Audrey Tatou are uncovering in this thriller - most of you have read the book and made up your own minds anyway. I am here to discuss the movie on its own merit. For the sake of the one person who just woke up from a coma and plans to go straight to the multiplex, I will call the central concept that is causing all the hullabaloo just “The Idea.”
Dan Brown wrote a fun, page turning thriller with a very interesting idea which had been previously bandied about by both secular and religious scholars. That book, a page-turning beach read with lots of fun puzzles, descriptions of well-known historical works of art and architecture, and murder most foul, was a hoot and eighty bazillion people read it. It was inevitable that it would be turned into a movie. When I read it the first time, I recall the visceral excitement as the puzzle unfolded (even when the answer was grossly obvious) and I would think, “Woo! I’d like to see this in a movie!” I would then rethink my position, since much of the “action” that our heroes perform is gymnastics of the mind. They work out anagrams, rifle through historical trivia like whether or not such-and-such Knight was buried by such-and-such other figure, and use an increasingly unlikely and detail-oriented arsenal of knowledge to find out The Idea, hidden for so long. Not very movie-oriented.
At no point reading did I think The Idea was a new idea, nor would it be one to cause such a fuss. Obviously, a fuss it did cause. Why is this relevant? Hollywood does not want to lose the ginormous audience it gained when it showed Gibson’s snuff film about the death of Jesus. Hollywood wants all of the eighty bazillion people who read the book go see the movie, even though they know the ending. So they sold out. This makes me furious. All the “controversial” stuff was watered down to such a degree that only a total reactionary would have any problem with it. In addition, words that the book’s lead man was saying with scholarly conviction were taken from him and put into the less credible maw of another character, and interrupted with Hanks’ qualifying blurbs like, “it is said,” or “some believe” or “the myth goes that”… In other words, a complete puss-out. I am not calling out for the revolution that the Catholic Church is portrayed as fearing in this movie. I, as a book reader and movie reviewer, call out for a movie to stay true to its source material, to not cave to commercial wimpiness. Bowing to the pressures of people who don’t have to see the movie and who don’t want mass consumption to lend credence to the film adaptation of a work of fiction is selling out in the worst way possible. Martin Scorcese didn’t sell out and that movie was great. Da Vinci was rendered frustrating and disappointing even though the actual filmmaking was very good.
I thought that Howard was brilliant in how he staged the mental gymnastics of his protagonists and carried us through their processes to work out the puzzle. It still had the necessary element of Encyclopedia Brown cerebellus-ex-machina, but it was visually interesting and didn’t slow down the action with book-digging. I also hate to admit it, but screenwriter Akiva Goldsman took that story and shaved it down to the bare minimum for time, wisely slicing out any hint of romantic tension or excessive anything. And the end was quite sweet. So, they made the film well, they just took the path of least resistance, and for that I cannot forgive them.
MPAA Rating R-language, nudity, sexual references, scene of violence
Release date 5/19/06
Time in minutes 149
Director Ron Howard
Studio Sony Pictures
